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Is Twitter Considered Free Speech at Your Station?

1-21-2013

Remember our story yesterday about Beasley's Dan Sileo, who was benched for two days, for tweeting his opinion about Erin Andrews? What would you do if one of your DJ's went on Twitter or Facebook and quipped, "working at this place is a nightmare. The boss treats me like garbage every day." You may not want to do anything until you read this story. As it turns out Radio is not the only industry struggling to deal with Social Media and federal regulators are now getting involved.

The feds are ordering employers to scale back rules limiting how employers place rules on Social Media. They believe those rules are a regulation on free speech. Regulators are concerned that employers are clamping down on workers who discuss their workplace, as they would on any normal day while standing at the water cooler or getting ac up of coffee. The New York Times reports that in a series of recent rulings labor regulators have declared blanket restrictions illegal. "The National Labor Relations Board says workers have a right to discuss work conditions freely and without fear of retribution, whether the discussion takes place at the office or on Facebook. In addition to ordering the reinstatement of various workers fired for their posts on social networks, the agency has pushed companies nationwide, including giants like General Motors, Target and Costco, to rewrite their social media rules, the Times write.

The paper writes, "The labor board’s rulings, which apply to virtually all private sector employers, generally tell companies that it is illegal to adopt broad social media policies — like bans on “disrespectful” comments or posts that criticize the employer — if those policies discourage workers from exercising their right to communicate with one another with the aim of improving wages, benefits or working conditions."